Assa Asks Costly Protection From Terror He Fosters

November 9, 1986|By Jeane Kirkpatrick, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

'The road to Palestine passes through Damascus and Moscow,'' said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in explaining to Palestinian guerrillas that there is no room in Lebanon for an independent PLO war against Israel. Syria, he insisted, is now ''the channel'' for pursuing Palestinian aspirations.

Jumblatt, a Syrian ally, exaggerated. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad has not yet established so dominant a position with regard to this and other related Middle Eastern questions. But he aspires to just such a role and is moving toward it purposefully.

In less than a decade, Assad has survived internal challenges to his rule, and has forged alliances with the Soviet Union, Libya, Iran and most of the terrorist groups of Middle Eastern origin. The Soviets provide him sophisticated weapons, his other allies provide foot soldiers in the unconventional terrorist war for control of the Middle East and the Arab world.

One goal of this war is the incorporation of Lebanon into a ''greater Syria.'' But the ''greater Syria'' of Assad's dreams includes Israel as well as Lebanon. It is here that Assad's goals intersect with the hopes of all those sworn to the destruction of Israel. ''Greater Syria'' could accommodate a Palestinian ''state'' with leaders strictly subordinate to Assad. It cannot accommodate a Jewish state.

Assad does not speak in public places about the destruction of Israel. But his allies do. A map provided to Iranian soldiers shows the city of Jerusalem as their ultimate destination, but shows no state called Israel. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi speaks clearly of the destruction of Israel as the operational goal of his foreign policy and alliances.

Each year in the United Nations, Syria joins Libya and Iran in sponsoring a resolution that calls for the expulsion and complete isolation of Israel. The Soviet Union and Soviet bloc vote in favor of this resolution. Nonetheless, some officials in our Department of State and our friends in foreign offices see Syria as a key to peace in the region, and the Soviet Union as a helpful participant in an ''international conference'' on Arab- Israeli problems.

Those who see Assad as the key to peace and who maintain a ''open mind'' on an ''international conference'' are also those who have regularly downplayed Syria's role in Middle Eastern terrorism, though that role has been clear to knowledgeable observers for years.

Meanwhile, the correlation of forces in the region shifts. The sophisticated Soviet missiles provided to Syria have altered Israel's strategic position and make an Israeli defense an urgent necessity.

In the past five years, former President Jaafar Numeiri has been overthrown in the Sudan, exposing a hitherto-protected Egyptian flank. Libya's presence in Chad has been consolidated. Pro-Soviet groups, with the help of Arafat's forces, have managed to hold on to South Yemen. Moslem fundamentalism continues a slow, but steady spread.

In the foreign offices of the West, an epidemic of optimism about Iran's future has broken out. The reasons for this optimism are not evident, though doubtless it is easier to submit to blackmail if one imagines the ransom paid for hostages is somehow strengthening ''moderates'' in a hypothetical internal power struggle. It seems more likely, however, that paying blackmail strengthens the blackmailers and establishes the effectiveness of their tactics.

Does crime pay? Does terrorism? Maybe. The U.S. government has apparently provided to Iran badly needed spare parts in exchange for the release of American hostage David Jacobsen. France's government will probably pay the ransom demanded for the release of eight French hostages presumably held in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

The French government has offered Iran a billion dollars, but no French hostages have been released. The Iranians want more: they want France to expel Iranians associated with opposition to the Ayatollah; they want France to sell arms to Iran instead of Iraq; they want France to liberate Anis Naccache, an Iranian terrorist. Should France accommodate these demands, even that may not be enough. A separate deal will probably be required to protect the streets of Paris against bombers from the Bekaa.

And then? Doubtless there will be more hostages and more bombings, and a helpful Assad will be ready to provide protection -- for a price -- from the dangers he himself foments.